CHICAGO — The Committee to Protect Medicare, a national organization of physicians, today criticized President Trump for calling the image of medical workers facing death without sufficient protective equipment “a beautiful thing to see.” Trump made the remarks Thursday during a visit to a medical distributor in Pennsylvania.

Specifically, Trump likened frontline health workers caring for COVID-19 patients “running into death just like soldiers run into bullets in a true sense, I see that with the doctors and the nurses and so many of the people that go into those hospitals, it’s incredible to see, it’s a beautiful thing to see.”

“As a veteran and as an emergency physician, I want to clarify for President Trump that deaths both on the battlefield and in our hospitals are heartbreaking and agonizing tragedies,” said Max Cooper, MD, an emergency physician in northeast Pennsylvania and a Navy veteran who serves as the Pennsylvania state lead for the Committee to Protect Medicare. “More than 82,000 Americans have died from COVID-19, many of those deaths avoidable had Mr. Trump better prepared our nation for a lethal, highly contagious virus. Now in his reckless rush to reopen our economy without a plan focused on safety, Mr. Trump is sending health workers and Americans into danger without the bullets and armor we need to keep people safe and beat back COVID-19, and that is a disgusting betrayal of the American people.”

CTP Executive Director Rob Davidson, MD, an emergency physician in Michigan, said: “President Trump’s inappropriate and ignorant remarks about death only remind us of his catastrophic pandemic response, and how it has put health care workers and patients in life-threatening danger. Many of our brothers and sisters on the frontlines in hospitals have died and been sickened doing their jobs because President Trump refuses to fully deploy the Defense Production Act to give us the protective equipment we need to keep ourselves and our patients safer from COVID-19. Americans everywhere face potential outbreaks of infections because Mr. Trump still won’t focus on ensuring we can test millions of Americans every day, trace those who are infected and isolate individuals with COVID-19.”

About the Committee to Protect Medicare

The Committee to Protect Medicare is an advocacy organization made up of frontline doctors engaging in direct advocacy and communications in support of a stronger healthcare system in America. To learn more:http://committeetoprotect.org/

NOTE: The physicians below are speaking in their capacity as members of the Committee to Protect Medicare. They should be identified only as indicated in this news release.